I don't know whether there's also an instance where somebody calls him Mr. Bison, but if this is the case, then this doesn't mean that the M itself is supposed to stand for Mister. (If he was General L. Bison, that same person would have also called him Mr. Bison.)

Yeah of course the M is his first name. It's not like Mr Bean. Bean was never given a first name and it got lampshaded in one skit where he is asked for his first name.

But man they messed up the Street Fighter II champions' names in English. I wish they'd just changed the boxer's name and not involve any of the other champions.

I thought for a long time that Mike Bison (the boxer) was the same Mike as in Street Fighter I. It even seemed to match well with his backstory that he was specializing in close combat until Ryu came and defeated him with a hadouken from a safe distance, and after that he trained for long range combat to eliminate that weakness. But later I read that Capcom never intended them to be the same person, although they are both based on Tyson.

As kids we never knew how to pronounce Ryu's name. As R and Y consonant sounds never comes after each other in Swedish it was just too hard to say, so we often switched around the Y with the U making Ruy, or sometimes we just called him Roy. Then a friend who "knew" how it was pronounced told us it was pronounced Rayu (he had watched English dubbed Street Fighter anime). I don't remember when I first heard his correct pronunciation though.Also I think we pronounced Chun-Li's name as Chan-Li for a long time for a similar reason (some guy "knew" how to pronounce it). Actually it was probably Shan-Li because we don't have the ch affricate consonant in Swedish.

Then a friend who "knew" how it was pronounced told us it was pronounced Rayu (he had watched English dubbed Street Fighter anime). I don't remember when I first heard his correct pronunciation though.

...I'm not sure that's the correct pronounciation. In fact, a Scandinavian approach to trying to say it, would probably be closer than the English.

I think that's why he used quotes when he said his friend "knew" the pronunciation.

Which anime was dubbed in english with the wrong pronunciation, though? In Street Fighter II V they say it as correctly as one can possibly expect from english speakers, AFAIR. In most regions of Brazil, an "R" in the beginning of a word sounds like "H", so the most common pronunciation here is "Hee-oo" (as seen in the SFIIV dub).

But man they messed up the Street Fighter II champions' names in English. I wish they'd just changed the boxer's name and not involve any of the other champions.

The problem is: The names in the versus screen are not put together with the general letters, but they are dedicated graphics. Changing the name to something completely different would have required to change the graphics. I guess they considered it easier to simply change some reference variables in the code.

About Ryu's pronunciation: There's actually a "correct"/official English pronunciation ("Ree-you", not "Rayu") that they use in official materials. But the actual, native Japanese pronunciation is still a bit different. This one sounds more like "Yüü".

Maybe they where that lazy but I think they might also have considered the other names to not be befitting as well. Two birds in one stone plus it was easier to do.

Not sure what you mean by "Yüü" (in my mind "ü" indicates the "German Y" vowel that doesn't exist in English or Japanese).Like 99% of everything else in Japanese it's pronounced just like it's spelled in Hepburn romanization "ryū", with IPA it would probably be [ɾʲɯː] or possibly more correctly [ɾʲɯᵝː] (r=ɾ, y=ʲ, u=ɯᵝ, long vowel=ː). I guess it's kind of like "Ree-you" but you don't pronounce the "ee" part (no vowel between the R and Y just like there's no vowel between S and P or R and K in "spark").

I think that's why he used quotes when he said his friend "knew" the pronunciation.

Yes, he was totally incorrect of course. It's technically possible to get really close by using existing sounds in Swedish, it's just that this particular combination of sounds doesn't exist in Swedish. No Swedish words are ever using a J (which is pronounced like the English and Japanese consonant Y) after an R or L (which may both be approximated as the Japanese R), so our tongues are not trained to do that.

Edit:

tokumaru wrote:

Which anime was dubbed in english with the wrong pronunciation, though? In Street Fighter II V they say it as correctly as one can possibly expect from english speakers, AFAIR. In most regions of Brazil, an "R" in the beginning of a word sounds like "H", so the most common pronunciation here is "Hee-oo" (as seen in the SFIIV dub).

I don't know, I think he watched the original animated Street Fighter II movie and/or some animated series dubbed to English. I'm pretty sure they said Raiyu there.

Maybe they where that lazy but I think they might also have considered the other names to not be befitting as well. Two birds in one stone plus it was easier to do.

Yeah, with Vega, they thought it doesn't sound threatening enough. And Balrog isn't really fitting for the Spaniard either.Although, Balrog would have been a better name for the dictator since it's the name of a fire demon from "Lord of the Rings".

In Germany, we never had this problem. Apart from the fact that the English R sounds different from the German one, we always said "ree-you" because that's exactly how you would spell the letters r-y-u in German. So, nobody here said "rayu" or "roo". Even the German dub of the movie called him "ree-you".

Obviously no one thought about that when they localized Street Fighter II, but it's really unfortunate that the changes stuck, since all three characters are still very prominent in the series, and obviously still retain their original names in Japan.

Going back to the subject of Nintendo retconning princess Toadstool to her original Japanese name, and Sega turning Robotnik back into Eggman, it's kinda strange that Capcom never tried to pull that with Street Fighter, considering how confusing the naming is. I don't have a problem with Gouki being called Akuma, cause you always know who people are talking about. But if someone is talking about Balrog, it's difficult to figure out if they're talking about the boxer or the spaniard. No surprise to anyone that insiders in the fighting community will always use the terms "boxer", "claw" and "dictator" to distinguish them.

Going back to the subject of Nintendo retconning princess Toadstool to her original Japanese name, and Sega turning Robotnik back into Eggman, it's kinda strange that Capcom never tried to pull that with Street Fighter, considering how confusing the naming is.

That's exactly the reason why they don't do it. (Apart from the fact that the Mike Tyson case is still a potential lawsuit.) Switching the names back around within the same region wouldn't remove any of the confusion.

Maybe they should invent a Bowser Koopa-like situation:

The boxer is called Milke Bison. And just like Mike Tyson was called Iron Mike Tyson, his ring name is Balrog Mike Bison.

He got his ring name from the Spaniard's first name. The Spaniard is called Balrog Vega. (Vega actually is a spanish family name.)

And after his divorce with Vega's sister, the dictator kept his double name of M. Bison-Vega. (Also, he's relatives with Mike Bison, that's why he lets him work for him.)

It's an idea, although I think it gets a bit out of hand if you include big background-story-influencing things like divorces.

This leads to another misconception of mine in that I thought the Spaniard was a girl as a kid. I didn't know Vega was a family name, and ending it with an "A" like that makes it sound like a girl's name in many European countries. Maybe the localizers thought that too, and therefore took it from the dictator and gave it to the most effeminate of the champions. Or they knew it was a Spanish surname.

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